Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A source of harm or ruin.
  • noun Retributive justice in its execution or outcome.
  • noun An opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome.
  • noun One that inflicts retribution or vengeance.
  • noun Greek Mythology The goddess of retributive justice or vengeance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In Greek myth, a goddess personifying allotment, or the divine distribution to every man of his precise share of fortune, good and bad.
  • noun Retributive justice.
  • noun [NL.] In zoology, a genus of crustaceans.
  • noun The 128th planetoid, discovered by Watson in 1872.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • proper noun (Class. Myth.) The goddess of retribution or vengeance; hence, retributive justice personified; divine vengeance.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An archenemy
  • noun A person or character who specifically brings about the downfall of another person or character
  • noun The principle of retributive justice.
  • noun usually singular, formal A punishment or defeat that is deserved and cannot be avoided.
  • noun The polar opposite of a character.
  • noun A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (Greek mythology) the goddess of divine retribution and vengeance
  • noun something causing misery or death

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek, retribution, the goddess Nemesis, from nemein, to allot; see nem- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Greek goddess of retribution Nemesis.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible cunt... me." - Brick Top

    May 28, 2008

  • First used to mean an arch-enemy by Shakespeare in Henry VI, Act 4, Scene 7:

    "Is Talbot slain, the Frenchmen's only scourge, Your kingdom's terror and black Nemesis? O, were mine eyeballs into bullets turn'd, That I in rage might shoot them at your faces!"

    February 2, 2019